Roger M. Wilcox's review of

The Day After Tomorrow

This movie does for meteorology and climatology what Armageddon did for
astronomy, what The Core did for geophysics,
and what NBC's 10.5 did for seismology.

The movie starts out, appropriately enough, on the Ross Ice Shelf in
Antarctica. A group of rag-tag researchers — including our movie's hero,
Dennis Quaid — are drilling ice core samples. Suddenly, a
super-duper-deep crack forms in the ice stretching for miles. The entire Ross
Ice Shelf is breaking free from Antarctica! And wouldn't you know it, out of
all the places in the middle of miles of uninhabited ice that the crack could
have ended up, it runs right through the middle of the scientists' tiny
camp. Hilarity ensues.

What's going on? Why, Global Warming, of course. Global Warming is causing the
Antarctic ice cap to melt. This will cause a huge amount of fresh water to be
dumped into the world's oceans, thus shutting down the North Atlantic Current
that brings warm water from the tropics to the temperate zones. This will usher
in a new Ice Age. Yes, that's right, global warming will result in an ice age.
Betcha never learned that in climatology school.

But this is no ordinary Ice Age that's a-comin'. No no no no no. This is a
super mega hyper ice age from hell. You see, Dr. Dennis Quaid, in looking at
the ice cores he drilled in Antarctica, has hit upon an alarming discovery:
10,000 years ago, there was a slow release of CO2 into Earth's
atmosphere. This slow release of CO2 was just like the one we're
creating right now by driving gas-guzzling SUVs, burning down rainforests, not
eating our vegetables, etc.. 10,000 years ago, so
Dr. Quaid tells us, this resulted in a sudden precipitous drop in temperature,
followed by an Ice Age that lasted for two centuries.

(Now, of course, the REAL ice age lasted for about 1.5 million years, and ENDED
about 10,000 years ago. But little things like real science would never stop
the intrepid Dr. Quaid.)

Armed with this new and alarming data, Dennis Quaid tells the Vice President of
the U.S. that a terrible, traumatic climate shift is coming, and if he doesn't
do something RIGHT NOW, millions of people will die. The Vice President
poo-poos him.

Then a super colossal snowstorm hits the British Isles. The temperature at the
"eye" of this storm is so cold that helicopters flying into it instantly have
their fuel hoses freeze, and when the survivors crash-land and open the doors,
they instantly flash-freeze in place too. Dr. Quaid's British
weatherstation buddy calls him and tells him that helicopter fuel freezes at
-150 degrees Fahrenheit. (In reality, kerosene — which is the fuel used
in aviation turbines — freezes at about -100 degrees Fahrenheit, but
we'll ignore this scientific faux pas.)

Armed with this new and alarming data, Dennis Quaid tells the Vice President of
the U.S. that a terrible, traumatic climate shift is coming, and if he doesn't
do something RIGHT NOW, millions of people will die. The Vice President
poo-poos him.

Armed with this new and alarming data, Dennis Quaid tells the Vice President of
the U.S. that a terrible, traumatic climate shift is coming, and if he doesn't
do something RIGHT NOW, millions of people will die. The Vice President
poo-poos him.

Then a gigantic tidal wave hits New York City and covers everything in water 25
feet deep, stranding Dennis Quaid's son in the New York Public Library. But
don't worry, a chick he has the hots for is stranded in the library with him,
so we know he'll eventually have someone to boink. Worse, the new water level
doesn't recede after the tidal wave hits; it STAYS 25 feet deep and then
freezes over. (How does the shutting down of the North Atlantic current cause
the sea level to suddenly rise 25 feet? Roland Emmerich must have learned his
climatology from Waterworld.)

Armed with this new and alarming data, Dennis Quaid tells the Vice President of
the U.S. that a terrible, traumatic climate shift is coming, and if he doesn't
do something RIGHT NOW, millions of people will die. The Vice President
poo-poos him.

Finally, however, the President decides to hear Dr. Quaid out. Quaid recommends
evacuating everybody in the U.S. south of the Mason-Dixon line, and advising
everybody in the northern U.S. to stay indoors because they'll instantly freeze
to death in that -150 degree Fahrenheit air that's coming. He then puts on some
snowshoes and treks out with his two rag-tag researcher buddies in tow, to go
and fetch his son from the New York Public Library. (Just what he expects to DO
to help his son once he reaches him is anybody's guess.)

As the President puts the evacuation plan into action, millions of Americans
are stopped trying to cross the border into Mexico. It seems the Mexican
government doesn't want any American immigrants. Ha ha, get it? Hilarity
ensues.

Meanwhile, in the New York Public Library, Quaid's son's girlfriend is dying
from an infected cut. Her only hope is to get some antibiotics. Conveniently,
an ocean-going cargo ship had earlier sailed down the street right outside the
library, and is now frozen in place there. (I swear I am not making this up.)
So, Quaid's son and two of his buddies make the daunting journey out of the
protective cocoon of the library and into the ship's waiting jaws. Unbeknownst
to our intrepid hero's son, however, four timberwolves have escaped from the
local zoo, and the harsh weather has turned them into killer zombie vampire
demon timberwolves or something. They've become really really really super
mean. They gang up on our hero's son and his pals while they're raiding the
ship, and our hero's son now has to fight off the wolves, drag a newly-injured
buddy behind him, get that vial of penicillin to his girlfriend before she
croaks, and outrace the supercooled -150 degree Fahrenheit air that just
happened to pick THIS moment to descend upon New York.

On his way to rescue his son, Dennis Quaid accidentally hikes on top of a
shopping mall and loses one of his rag-tag researchers when he falls through
the ceiling glass. Then he, too, gets caught in the supercooled -150 degree
Fahrenheit air that's descending on New York. Ah, action and drama. We've seen
movie heroes outrun tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, sandstorms, approaching
armies, and countless fireballs, but there's nothing quite like the suspense of
watching a movie hero outrun an encroaching frost line.

Oh, and I forgot to mention — while all this is going on, Dennis Quaid's
wife, who her self is a doctor in a hospital, is tending to a cute little boy
with cancer. Unfortunately, when the hospital she's working in is evacuated,
somebody miscounted and no ambulance is available to carry the cute little boy
with cancer away. So, bravely, she elects to stay behind and take the slim
chance that, eventually, an ambulance will arrive. Millions of people have
already died or been seriously injured from tornadoes and tidal waves and
flash-freezing, but darn it, there's a
cute little boy with cancer that needs her attention.

Finally, the storm subsides, the astronauts stranded aboard the International
Space Station look at Europe when Houston asks them to look at North America,
Dennis Quaid is reunited with his son, the ambulance arrives for the cute
little boy with cancer, and the Vice President sees the error of his ways and
learns the True Meaning of Christmas. Everybody has a great big group hug as
the Vice President makes a speech about the evils of consuming natural
resources or not flossing your teeth between meals or something.

The funniest part in this movie, for me, came in the closing credits. It said
the movie was inspired by the book The Coming Super-Storm, written by
ART BELL and WHITLEY STRIEBER. That's right: a movie about the dangers of
global warming was based on a book written by two UFO conspiracy theorists. Now
we know why the science in this movie was so (ahem) stellar.

As disaster movies go, this one is okay. It's got the tornadoes from
Twister, it's got the tidal wave hitting Manhattan from Deep
Impact (sans World Trade Center towers, of course), and it's even got the
crack in the ground deliberately chasing after people from 10.5. But
there's one thing it's missing that keeps it from being a true Roland Emmerich
classic:

I'm of course talking about NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

Everybody knows that to save the earth, you have to detonate nuclear weapons.
It worked in Deep Impact, it worked in Armageddon, it worked in
The Core, and it worked in 10.5. Dennis Quaid should have
convinced the President to lob a 2-megaton strategic thermonuclear warhead into
the heart of one of those superstorms. Given standard disaster movie physics,
it would've cleared the storm right up and averted the Ice Age that followed.